Bruce Van Dyke

from July 11, 2013

Musicbeat

Crawl man

Ed Adkins

Ed Adkins is the organizer of five Reno bar crawls. The Superhero Crawl is this Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and he has added the Arch Rivals 5K Race at 9 a.m. this year, too.

So you organize bar crawls?

A bunch. I do the Zombie Crawl, the Superhero Crawl which is coming up. We just started a Leprechaun Crawl last St. Patrick’s Day. And then I do a Valentine’s Vampire Crawl, and then I just took over the Pirate Crawl. I’ve been adding these 5Ks this year. The first one is going to be the day of the Superhero Crawl, but we’re going to add another one to the Zombie and to the one in February when we do the Valentine’s Vampire. This year we’re going to change it to the Valentine’s Pajama Crawl.

How did you start doing this?

My birthday is in October, and I like to celebrate it. I had been thinking that I really wanted to do a bar crawl with my friends, and then I saw that Halloween was going to be on a Friday [in 2008]. And I was like, “Oh man. We should do a Halloween-themed bar crawl.” And I love zombies, so I just was like Zombie Crawl … and we had 200 people show up. ... People really enjoyed it.

PHOTO/SAGE LEEHEY

So are the 5Ks to draw in more people?

We wanted more opportunity to showcase how quirky and fun Reno is. These events work because of the people. It’s because we have a really unique culture here. People love to get goofy here, and we’re not pretentious. It’s really easy for people to put on something funny and go out and have a blast. ... The crawls are something that people who really enjoy the nightlife get involved in, but for the under 21 crowd and for the folks that don’t focus so much on nightlife, we were like, what else can we do? ... So I thought we should try it [5K runs] out. I asked around, and the response I love because it’s emotional. Everybody just immediately goes, “Yes!”

Where does the funding for all this come from?

Um, me? They’ve evolved, so we’ve tried to put it back into what we’re doing. I basically just scrape together everything I can, and it works out. I mean, there have been years where it’s come down to the wire where we almost didn’t get cups because it was down to the last hour that we could order them, and I had no idea how to pay for it. I’ve done a lot of pacing, and I’ve lost a lot of hair. But it has always worked out so far.

Any sponsors?

We’ve got consistent support from Junkee because they’re incredible people, and they’re super supportive of their community. I would not be where I am without Jessica and Troy Schneider....But sponsorships outside of that, I never really have time to go for them. The sponsorships I’ve had in the past mostly came to me, but it’s got to match the folks that come to the crawls. ... You have to really focus on building community and losing money if you want to do this stuff. Someday I hope to have enough time to work with sponsors, but if you let a sponsor dictate what you’re doing, then you work for them, and I try to do this for the people who are coming out. I come out for these crawls. I party at these crawls. I have a blast. And so I’m here thinking about what would make me happy and how would I have fun, and most sponsors who approach you don’t. Some of them can be anti-throwing-agood-party, so I’d much rather not get their money and focus on throwing a good party. Ω

Our price: Cheap! ∫y Bruce Van Dye

Good news for us old geezers who have a soft spot for various nostalgias. You know, stuff like scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July (although I’m sure you, like me, have upped the ante in terms of the quality of tubular food stuffs you stuff in your doghole these days. I mean, as kids we sure as hell didn’t have the option of rolling with chicken pesto apple mango marshmallow brats on the Fourth. Our dogs in the ’60s, you’ll recall, were pure squeegeescrapers right off the Oscar Mayer slaughterhouse floor, and I’ve completely lost my train of thought because of that lengthy parenthetical remark, but you know, uh—yes, well, uh, hmmmm.)

Anyway, the nostalgic news is that one recent day, I was at a supermarket checkout line, and there amongst the usual array of trash, slime and crap (a.k.a. Kardashian updates) was a Mad magazine. Mad! I hadn’t seen one in years and had assumed that it was long gone, consigned to a much deserved hallowed spot in the humor pantheon of the past. But no, there was our old pal Alfred E. Newman, in classic form, sitting atop a perfect sendup of the multi-sworded chair of the King on Game of Thrones, which of course for Mad became a toilet backed by lots of medieval plungers and stuff, and of course Alfred has his royal pants around his ankles as he grins his timeless toothless grin in his timelessly vapid yet all-knowing way. I simply had to buy it, and I’m delighted to report that it was pretty damn funny. Yes, the great Mad masters of the past that us boomoids grew up with (Don Martin and Mort Drucker, for example) are dead and gone, but man, there are a lot of new, young, funny, talented sickos out there on the fruity plain to take their place. The writing and artwork on the lampoon of GOT was spot on and beautifully done, featuring a slew of terrific caricatures, plus loads of other cool stuff ripping the heck out of modern nonsense, just as you would expect Mad to do.

And amazingly enough, Barack Obama as Alfred E. Newman is just as hilarious and perfect as George Dubya Newman. Truly LOL material. In the end, I had to say “Bravo!” and I can honestly report I got at least five bucks worth of chuckles, giggles and hoots for my five bucks. Maybe even $7.50 worth! It was great to see an old friend from the past still alive, relevant and good. Their current offer of a year for 13 bucks may well prove irresistible to the Van Dyke household. (From my research department— also known as Wikipedia—Mad has been publishing continuously since 1952! Sixty-one years! Now up to issue 521, the magazine comes out six times a year. I have no idea how it flew under my radar for so long, but, hey, you know, poop occurs.) Ω

THROUGH THE SCARY

I WISH I KNEW THE RULES, the ABC’s, the path.

I wish I didn’t have memories of driving around Reno on dark nights and dark days hoping I would fi nd my son. Where might he be? Sometimes I wished he was in jail. At least he would be safe. These are the thoughts of a parent of a young addict. Will I get to be the parent of an addict in recovery, a child who is living? I don’t know. I hope so. Yes, I think so. To think otherwise is dangerous and not helpful. I have six years experience now. It took four to tie the events together, to not accept the explanations for the lost pieces: the car, the grades, the jobs. Another to say the word addict. Another to start to fi nd our own personal path through the scary. I have learned now that 10- 15% of people are born addicts. Like cancer, they are predisposed thus implying it’s not their fault. I like this. It takes away the stigma, it salves my parenting, and allows us to treat it as a disease. This fact is a gift, I love this gift. But here’s the rub. At 4am when sleep is impossible, wouldn’t my son rather be responsible for his actions? To give name, if only to himself, what caused him to pick up that beer, vodka, tequila, weed, little round pill of something that tastes bitter. I’m not sure that it credits a person’s life to say it’s a disease that makes him an addict. Would it be better to allow my son to say he felt too much the personal events that make up his life? Is this addiction recovery heresy? I don’t know. I’d tell him it’s all my fault if I could make it go away. The question becomes not why, but how to work on recovery. This is what I have found to be the most diffi cult thing about addiction: There is no one clear path to recovery. In this space, I will tell you a little about my family’s path through the scary, and invite others to tell me their’s. The focus will not be on the long distance loneliness of the acts of addiction, but rather on the successes of recovery. Our successes involved a one way ticket to Bangkok, a $20 dollar bill, and a Thai monastery. NEED HELP NOW? JTNN offers weekly meetings with THE PARENT GROUP, 6:30pm, Thursdays at 505 S. Arlington. Confi dential, FREE, and run by a licensed counselor.